X´ANTHUS
X´ANTHUS (
Ξάνθος), an important river in the W. of Lycia, which is mentioned even in Homer (
Hom. Il. 2.877,
5.479), and which, according to Strabo (
xiv. p.665), was anciently called Sirbes, that is in Phoenician and Arabic “reddish yellow,” so that the Greek name Xanthus is only a translation of the Semitic Sirbes or Zirba. The Xanthus has its sources in Mount Taurus, on the frontiers between Lycia and Pisidia, and flows as a navigable river in a SW. direction through an extensive plain (
Ξάνθου πεδίον, Hdt. 1.176), having Mount Bragus on the W. and Massicytes on the E., towards the sea, into which it discharges itself about 70 stadia S. of the city of Xanthus, and a little to the NW. of Pinara. (Herod.
l.c.; Ptol. 5.3.2; Dion.
Per. 848;
Ov. Met. 9.645; Mela, 1.15;
Plin. Nat. 5.28.) Now the
Etshen or
Essenide. (Fellows,
Lycia, pp. 123, 278.) Respecting Xanthus as a name of the Trojan river Scamander, see
SCAMANDER [
L.S]
